


I Never Wanted This

by Absolutefandomtrash



Category: Hereditary (2018)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Possession, Spoilers, Trigger warning for suicide, and anxiety attacks, and depression, and one brief mention of self-harm, brief mention of sex, canon-compliant depictions of suicide, descriptions of gross things, just serious trigger warnings, like rotting corpses with ants all over them gross, serious violence, trans charlie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 16:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15247488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Absolutefandomtrash/pseuds/Absolutefandomtrash
Summary: After the end of the movie, what happens next? How does Charlie cope with the news?Not very well. It turns out that basically being an amnesiac demon that a group of people want power from is not what anyone involved expected it to be.NOTE: Due to an extreme case of writer's block, I've decided to abandon this work. But I finished this as well as I can because I don't want to be that jerk of an author that just stops with several incomplete chapters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [My friend who doesn't have an account but I love her and give this first fic as a present to](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=My+friend+who+doesn%27t+have+an+account+but+I+love+her+and+give+this+first+fic+as+a+present+to).



> So there will be multiple mentions of sex, and I honestly don't know how to define it. The first one at least is the most sketchy, since while everyone involved consents, Peter's the only one who isn't over 18. Just wanted to throw it out there.

"...Mommy?" Peter's voice shook with fear and...something not good as he slowly opened his eyes and stared at the door to the attic he was currently pressed against. His breathing started to slow down, but each intake of air felt like the last time he smoked weed with his friends and couldn't breathe. That was in his head, though. This was actually happening.

He wanted his dad. For all his faults, Steve Graham tried his best to have his children know that they could go to him with anything they needed, and Peter needed him more than anything right now; he needed to feel his dad, be held by him, hear this was a nightmare, that Mom had gone crazy but would get help, something. But the charred corpse holding Charlie's notebook wasn't going to do anything. Peter was by himself.

Peter slowly and shakily stood up and looked around the attic. Christ, it reeked. The far wall had some kind of marking on it, along with candles on the floor. He walked towards it to see what- oh god.

Blood. Symbol drawn in blood. Really dried-up blood in a symbol in the attic. He looked at the candles to get his eyes off and immediately regretted it. Because he knew what a pentagram looked like, and he knew what they were associated with, and he knew that the picture in the middle was his. He started to cry again and thought back to just moments before when his mother was frantically pounding her entire body against the attic while he screamed. That wasn't her. That was part of some fucked-up scheme to get everyone. It would only be so long before he was next. 

He wanted to die. Not the first time he thought about it, but at this moment it felt like the only thing waiting for him. That or be possessed or whatever those people were planning on doing to him. Death would come, but the question was on whose terms? He wanted it to be him. He could do it right-

Some horrible sound right above him caught his attention, and he looked up. He immediately wished he hadn't, because his mother was floating above him and dragging one of the broken piano wires they had been meaning to fix for weeks across her neck. Her eyes were glazed over, but he could see the same feral terror that she had the night she was sleepwalking. Peter felt frozen in place, much like he felt upon waking up covered in paint thinner, and watched helplessly as the piano wire started moving faster. And faster. And faster and faster until blood was pouring out of all sorts of places his dad could've named and finally broke through the other end and let the severed head of his mom fall to the ground with the most sickening thud he ever heard in his life. Worse than Charlie, because there was the break noises and him swearing and other noises to mask what was the loudest sound right now. 

He just stared at it as it rolled towards another corner of the attic and drew his attention to the fact that three naked people were standing there. Eyeing him hungrily. With the same smile the other man had. The same one his mom had while she drove him into the attic. They slowly walked towards him with those hungry looks and those smiles and his entire mind screamed at him to end it before he couldn't so he threw himself out the window with a shriek.

Surprisingly, there was calm in the seconds in between window and ground. He was going to die on his terms, and that was okay. No one in their family was very religious, but he hoped that at least he could see his family once he joined them. Apologize to Charlie, cling to Dad, tell Mom she's forgiven. Yes, he thought as he collided with the hard ground, that's what he would do if that sort of afterlife existed. He closed his eyes and let himself be dragged down into the darkness enveloping him.

A gentle warmth settled over his body and completely filled him. The warmth felt alive and felt something happening. The warmth had a name, didn't it? It did, at some point. So did the body it filled, but that was a different name that the one it had. It wanted a name. It wanted to know what was happening, why it felt that it had something important to do. First it needed to see to know where to find the something. So it opened his eyes.

The garden. That's right, he jumped out a window. He wanted to break enough of his body to die, which he did; the warmth fixed him. He stood up and looked around more. The treehouse had the space heater's light in the window. Someone was in there. A floating headless body was going inside. Strange.

'Click,' the warmth instructed. So he did. That was something the warmth had done before, right? Yes, that felt right. He slowly moved towards the treehouse and looked around as he went. There were several naked people looking at him. Or were they looking at the warmth? Maybe they were looking at both. He kept walking. It slept in there before. 'Mom and Dad were worried about pneumonia. But it was fine.' Yes, that felt right. They wanted it to be healthy. They were worried parents.

He climbed up the ladder and saw other light from inside. Candles. How odd. There weren't candles when it was there. Or maybe there were and it never noticed. He saw candles in the attic; they scared him because they were in a special shape and had something in them. It couldn't remember what it was and it couldn't remember what light was in the tree house. It opened the door and climbed inside.

More naked people, but they weren't looking this time. They were kneeling, and one lady was dressed in a white dress so she must be different than them. It was different. It drew and made toys and made sounds that no one understood. He turned around and saw a big version of its toys but with its head on it instead of a bird's. He barely recognized it because the nose and half of its mouth were missing, the milky eyes had all but turned to slush in their sockets, and the rotting flesh had turned it a sickly shade of brown-yellow-green. But no ants like last time the head was found. Last time the head didn't have an appearance because of the dark mass of legs crawling all over it and inside it, eating their fill and infesting every inch. He knew the head. He cried about it because it belonged to someone special. Who was it? He moved closer to see better. 

The warmth knew the head belonged to it, but not really. Not anymore. Because the head had been taken away and it was looking from a new head, new body. That figured out, he turned and saw a picture of his grandmother. 'Queen Leigh' written below it. What was she queen of? While he was looking soft hands placed something on his head and gently held his face. He looked and saw the lady wearing white. She smiled at him with that same look, but more gentle. Like she didn't want to scare it. What was there to be scared of? Was there another dead thing?

He looked to the side and slightly behind and saw two bodies. One was his grandmother and the other was... 'Mommy?' He had asked that question before seeing her with a piano wire. The warmth was moving the wire. But that was Mom. Mom was the one the piano wire moved through. But there was something angry and scared that stopped it from realizing that was her neck until now. Mom talked with it. Mom asked to see it draw. It wanted Mom but only saw Dad and Peter and Peter was crying why were they crying and then it drew pictures of Peter to warn them about something and now Mom was here why was she here what's going on-

"Hey," a gentle voice interrupted its thoughts. "Hey, it's alright now." It was the lady in white, it knew instinctively. He kept staring and didn't turn until the lady said a firmer, "Charlie."

Charlie. That was the name. That was the name it had, the one different from his. The warmth turned to look at the lady, who smiled at it-him-her and stepped closer. The warmth let her touch his face. She reminded it that it had a name, and that name was Charlie. But wasn't there another...?

"It's alright now," the lady repeated in her gentle voice. Her hands were soft. "You're safe here." It felt safe. This felt familiar somehow. 

"Your name is Paimon." He stared at her and slightly opened his mouth. That was the other name. The other one it thought it might have had. Charlie felt right, it was right, but Paimon... Paimon filled the warmth with wholeness that Charlie never could. The lady explained who the warmth used to be, which felt right in his gut, but it knew that it wasn't that in the tree house. It was Charlie. Charlie was Charlie, not Paimon. Wasn't she? If the warmth was Charlie, then why was his body a he?

"We have replaced your old form with a young male body." 'Grandma wanted me to be a boy.' Now it was. Or she was. No, he. He was a she, but then she became he. The lady told him what they did to bring him here, and he knew that they did it right. But he didn't know why. Maybe Paimon knew.

She went back to where she was and started to yell praises at him. With the wrong name, but it was for the same person. Paimon and Charlie. Charlie and Paimon. The other people in the treehouse yelled back. The voices filled it until there was noise filling every unoccupied space in the building then stopped. He knew he had to do something. He had to show them that he heard, even if he didn't know what he was supposed to do. They needed to be rewarded for the warmth becoming Charlie.

He took a slightly shaky step forward, still staring straight ahead; he didn't need to look until he got to the lady. The lady was gentle. The lady was the leader. He should reward her so the others feel it, too. She looked up at him with a hopeful, hungry look and he knew what he wanted to do to get that hunger away for a time, and he knew he could reward her with it. He gently touched her face- it felt hot- and let her cool hands touch his. She smiled at him and he smiled back but not for the same reason and then took her hair and yanked her head back so her mouth would open in a gasp and he could take advantage of the gasp and kiss her hard.

She held the back of his head tighter and kissed him back, moaning as he stuck his tongue as far down her throat. He felt shy hands pulling at his jacket and reached for the person to pull them in and switch the kissing to them to say 'Yes, that is okay.'

There was a clamor of bodies in response to that as everyone crowded around him and pulled at his clothes, some coming off and some tearing off but it didn't matter. He was letting them know he was rewarding them for following his rules. They were good at following rules, and he knew that was something important. He let them pull and tear and kiss because this was the one time they would be rewarded en masse.

He opened his eyes and saw the man from the funeral, from downstairs, close to him for his turn. He wouldn't be doing much soon, apart from maybe fertilizing some flowers. But for now let him think he's going to do more than he will. Charlie dug his nails into his back when he started touching and suddenly became aware of every muscle in his back. He wanted to dig in and tear through the layers and layers and see them unfold but instead only broke the surface of his skin to draw very little blood. He dug his nails into everyone after that man, who would boast about being marked first as if it was some sign of favor. Actually it was a secret reminder for who Charlie was going to make pay first. The man made Peter hurt himself. The man helped hurt Mom and Dad and Charlie couldn't forgive that.

He would reward them, he would give them small gifts to let them believe that their selfish requests were being fulfilled, and he would find out how to let them know that it doesn't matter that he doesn't remember what he once was or isn't giving them anything close to what they think they want because they don't know that he wants something that he thinks he never asked for until today.

 

He wants to be loved.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cult manages to get the police out of their hair without taking Charlie away from them, Joan learns the hard way about killing someone's brother, and Charlie has a startling revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, that will be the only somewhat sketchy sex scene, I promise on Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. TRIGGER WARNING: this chapter will contain self-harm and also will bring up the topic that was tagged as 'trans Charlie.' Some of the explorations of this topic won't be warm and fluffy. I am not trans, so I don't know what experiencing that is like. That's why I won't focus on experiencing and living as someone who is after this chapter, but I will be voicing what might have been Paimon's thoughts on the host he has. If you don't know, the topic of Paimon preferring a male host is kind of a hotly debated topic on the Tumblr, with some people saying it's sexist and cissexist that Paimon wants a male host and will quote, "become violent and angry if placed in a female host." Not exact, but to be fair that page was on screen for like two seconds. People say this is sexist and cissexist because it's the equivalent of going, "FEEEEEEMAAAALEEEEESSS SUUUUUUUCK"- which in my humble opinion is bullshit and people trying to seem intellectual when in reality they want to create drama. Paimon's a male demon, so I think it makes perfect sense that he wants a male human body to possess and won't be the happiest if he's in a female one. Charlie doesn't act out of violence because I support Ari Aster in that she literally just found out about the whole demon thing, but there will be discontent shown with being a girl- bad explanation but I want this chapter read- that I will mention. Seriously guys, I'm a Christian and definitely should not be defending a demon. 
> 
> Why is this important you ask? I want to clear the water before you guys read so you know that I'm not trying to delegitimize anyone's experiences and won't be focusing on something I will never truly understand. I'll talk about it then move on to the demon killing people stuff, kapeesh?
> 
> Kapeesh.

When it was all said and done Charlie moved his way through the crowd to the less sacrifice-containing part of the treehouse. Someone handed him his clothes, and he dressed himself on the way; thankfully they were too busy standing up and muttering frivolous things to each other to all stare at him at once until way after he dressed himself, albeit missing a shirt and socks and part of a pants leg.

When they did, however, he felt the entire weight of what they just did. Now they would want their reward immediately. He looked around at everyone in a panic because he didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. The lady- no, Joan, Joan was the name she had- shoved people aside and walked up to him. She looked like she knew what was going on, and that made him feel better. In a quiet voice, but one that was still clear in the oppressive silence, she asked, "Is this too much right now?" She sounded like she had talked this way to her own children at some point. Charlie nodded. He couldn't do anything for them because he couldn't remember how and they were staring at him and he knew exactly what they would ask him but also didn't and it was too much for him to do right away.

"We'll wait until you're ready." They need to be able to wait a long time. "There will be police investigating everything, but we made a plan to not have them know what happened. Do you think you can satisfy them with nothing?" Charlie looked down and thought. He'd have to say things, but the things didn't have to be much. The warmth had words to keep them away. He nodded again.

"Perfect. If you want, you can go to sleep and get rest while we take care of everything." She said that like he was a little kid, which he wasn't. But she just didn't want to scare him, so he didn't say anything. He nodded again and, without looking at anyone else, he zipped his hoodie, turned around, and lay down facing the wall.

There were surprised noises from the people but Joan shushed them and sent them to work. She knelt down by him and asked, "Do you want to go to your room?" Charlie shook his head. "Would you like a blanket?" He nodded. "I'll get you one." He heard her footsteps blur with the others'. If he focused very hard, he could pick out who was who because of the vibrations. Like when he'd listen to whoever was walking upstairs. He closed his eyes.

He woke up a few hours later with a blanket around his shoulders and police sirens outside the house. He sat up and saw two officers, a boy and a girl, standing off to the side; they were obviously guarding him until he woke up. The girl officer noticed him first and nudged her partner.

"You're awake. That's good," he said gently. Everyone was being so gentle with him. He was anything but. It was starting to get on his nerves. He didn't say that, though. He just stared at them and made tears start falling down his face.

"We're gonna take you down, where another officer just needs you to answer a few questions, okay?" That was the lady cop. She appeared less worried about him being fragile and more about getting him with other people in case something happened. He liked that better, so he nodded. She smiled at him and waved her hand at the door. "We'll be right behind you. Your godmother's here, if you'd like to see her." He just climbed down the ladder and didn't bother saying that his godmother died before he was five. He knew who they were talking about.

Joan played the perfect distressed guardian, holding him and crying and saying things to him they both knew didn't actually mean anything. He stayed quiet unless he needed to mumble out short answers to the questions. The whole precess took a few hours to finish, and by the time they left everything was wrapped in a pretty bow. 

Joan told him that everyone else would be coming back much later, so he had some free time. Even better. He needed to think. He needed to figure out who he was inside and who he was and how much of the warmth was Charlie and get an idea of what he could do. The lake seemed a good place to start, so he walked there and made sure Joan saw him walking there so she wouldn't run after him all worried.

As he walked, he stopped at different points to test things. He could make rocks turn over, float an inch, and even saw a small bug landing on his hand a few seconds before it appeared. He decided that before he really was as powerful as Joan had told him. Being a king meant beans powerful, so in the near future he probably be seeing more and more of his powers developing. He liked the seeing the future ones. No surprises. One of the tasks he set for himself had already been checked off before he even got to the lake. He felt good until he knelt down to see his reflection.

No. No. No no no no nononononononono not him. Not him it couldnt be him he was seeing things like the bug yes that was it just hit the lake and he could see what he actually looked like yes do it. He got as far and raising his hand to disturb the calm surface when the reality of who he was inside of fully hit him. He moved the water anyways. And again. And again and again until he was frantically splashing the water and crying before stopping and staring at the reflection that became less and less distorted as the water calmed down and became the same image as before. Peter.

A broken sob escaped from his throat. His vision blurred with hot tears as another sob followed. Peter's body. He was inside Peter. Peter was the one the warmth came in and fixed his broken insides after he saw his face in the middle of the candles in the attic and now his body was being used by his sister the demon who didn't want him to get hurt didn't want anyone to get hurt.

Charlie screamed.

He didn't care who heard. He didn't care that it sounded bad. He didn't care. He screamed and stared at himself screaming and crying as his chest got tighter and he threw his hands back into the lake to get Peter's face away because it would leave him alone then. But it would come back when he looked at his reflection again. And he would have to see it again. His screams grew louder but not loud enough for him to not hear Joan running to him and stopping and he screamed and splashed until his arms hurt and his throat burned and all he could do was sit there shivering and hiccuping and wheezing. Joan moved closer and sat down next to him. He knew she was afraid of him finding out. He knew things about her that invaded his exhausted mind then left just as fast. She looked at him. He stared at his reflection in the lake.

"I killed him," he-she-he whispered.

"No, Charlie," Joan started with her gentle voice, "no, you-"

"I killed him," Charlie repeated in Peter's voice, which made him whimper before continuing. "I was hurting and scared and I burned Dad. Then I made Mom cut off her head because I needed it but I didn't know why and he saw that and his picture and the people and I saw him jump then I waited until he was gone to settle and fix what he broke in his body and I was warm and not hurting anymore. I killed him." He stared at himself in disgust. Peter's face snarled back at him.

"I'm in him now, and I can see everything he was thinking," he continued. "He was so scared. While I was screaming and trying to get in the attic he was so scared and begging me to stop and begging Mom to stop and apologizing for keeping her out. He wanted to die. He wanted to die so he could stop because he was scared."

"He died so you could come back," Joan murmured. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself that this was comforting. "He died for you to be what you wanted and do great things."

"He died so it would be his decision," Charlie replied without any emotion. He was just numb. "He didn't want to be killed for what was going to happen. He wanted to die without his body being used. But that's what you wanted."

"Isn't it what you wanted?"

Charlie looked down again. He saw his brother's face and heard his brother's voice. He wanted to rip his eyes and vocal chords so he didn't have to see and hear Peter. But he knew that wasn't good, so he decided to hurt another part of himself. For Peter to stop staring back at him.

"I don't know what I wanted," he confessed. "I know I wanted something, but I can't remember." He looked at his fingernails then back at his reflection. "I don't think I wanted it to look at me with my brother's face." Without saying anything else, he dug into his cheeks and jaw and all over with his nails. It hurt. It felt good. If it hurt it was his face, not Peter's. If he went deep enough it would scar and not be Peter's reflection staring at him. He scratched furiously and felt blood starting to drip. He scratched harder.

Soft but strong hands grabbed his wrists and pulled them away. He growled and tried lunging after then, to keep mutilating, but his arms were being held apart. He twisted his body and kicked and screamed but Joan kept holding him until his screams turned to sobs turned to whimpers.

"He wouldn't want you doing that," she quietly told him. He looked at her face that looked at him with a sort of condescending affection. She didn't care that his brother was dead. She didn't care that he just wanted to stop seeing her brother. She just wanted him to do what she thought he would do. 

He growled and used his powers to take her hands off and stormed away. She got up and started running after him, which made him run faster. She yelled after him but he didn't listen and ran to the tree house, climbing the ladder and locking himself inside. He curled up in the corner. She started banging on the door.

"Charlie!"

"Go away!" he yelled.

"Charlie, it was for your own good!"

"SHUT UP!" He screamed and stomped as hard as he could on the door. "SHUT UP! YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM! YOU DIDN'T HAVE HIM AS YOUR BROTHER! HE WAS MY BROTHER AND YOU TOOK THAT AWAY FROM ME! HE IS MINE NOW AND YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM! MINE TO LIVE! MINE TO TAKE CARE OF! MINE TO HURT! AND YOU ARE NOT TAKING HIM AWAY FROM ME EVER AGAIN! ANY OF YOU! I KILLED MY BROTHER BECAUSE OF YOU AND YOU WILL NOT TELL ME THAT I CAN'T CRY FOR HIM BECAUSE I CAN AND I WILL! NOW LEAVE!" he stomped on the door again. "ME!" Again. "ALONE!" Again with a screech.

Nothing from the other side of the door. She probably left. He hoped she'd fallen down the ladder and broken her neck. She would be paying, too. She and the man from the funeral will be the first and then all of them because that was his parents they hurt and that was his brother they killed. They will all be hurt just like they did to his family.

He collapsed on the floor and curled into the fetal position, too tired to do anything but passively let tears flow out of his eyes whenever they felt like it. He stared at the floor and thought about what Joan said about picking out a boy. Because Paimon wanted a boy.

Grandma said that she would've been a beautiful grandson. That she shouldn't feel so girly and do whatever she wanted. Charlie wore dresses and pants and pink and blue and had short hair then long hair and did what Grandma and Mom and Dad said she should do: find what she liked and do it. That's when Charlotte stopped being said altogether in favor of Charlie and the long hair was still really short and the only times she was in a dress were when there was an important event they had to go to. 

She'd never said she was a boy, but she said Grandma wanted that to happen. Because that was true. That didn't change the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever 'she' was used and how she always wanted to cringe every time someone called her a 'beautiful girl.' Those always felt wrong and she didn't feel that skirts and dresses were for her because they just made her skin crawl and her brain to want to rip them off. 

And now she wasn't a girl anymore. Now there weren't any dresses or skirts (even though Peter did tell her one night when playing Truth or Dare that he sometimes stole them from Mom's closet and used pictures of him in them to talk to boys he liked) to wear and there wasn't any 'pretty' or 'she' to be used and the agitation that always stayed in the back of her mind was gone from his. Everything just felt right. He felt good. He felt whole. He felt like something that he was missing had been found and he could stop constantly worrying. He can be a he now without anyone saying that he was anything but. There was a freedom in that, something relaxing and encouraging.

Yes, he realized with a new batch of tears, he liked being he.

He liked being in his brother's body.

And he hated himself for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that I lost my drive to finish this! But honestly thanks for the kudos. I didn't expect it.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm on my phone and can't do any of the italics or holds that I want to do, so once I get to my computer I'll add those. Just keep that in mind. This is something that came out of my brain at 11:30 after watching it and thinking about how much it sucks for whoever's in Peter's body. Also this is my first fanfiction on here, so don't expect any great quality out of it. But if there's grammar or clarity things that can be improved, let me know.


End file.
